House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called for an investigation into the heavily and deceptively edited Planned Parenthood videos on CNN’s State of the Union today, effectively turning the tables on Republicans who have been used to the press running in whatever direction their pointer finger was aimed.
Watch here via CNN:
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Pelosi was explaining why she isn’t concerned about the deceptively edited Planned Parenthood videos, “I also know that it’s not real and you can create any reality that you want.”
Jake Tapper asked, “OK so even if you don’t accept the videos on their face—”
Here’s where Pelosi called for an investigation — interrupting Tapper to finish her thought, Pelosi said, “And I think they should be investigated as to how they obtained those and doctored those and then had them be accepted as something that was an indictment against Planned Parenthood, because that’s not true.”
Tapper then addressed the talking point that blames Planned Parenthood for being deceived, which is a handy exit for the guilty party but Pelosi was having none of that. (Note that Tapper is the journalist who busted the fake “Benghazi emails implicate the White House” claims made by a journalist who never even saw the emails himself.) The House Democratic Leader said, “I think Planned Parenthood has excellent leadership… I do think that Planned Parenthood… consists of many state organizations and some of them maybe not as aware on assault on them.”
Yes. Earth to any and all organizations helping the needy and the poor: a right winger is gunning for you. They will use any method to attack your organization and make scandalous headlines based on deceptive and deliberately misleading editing.
Pelosi was right to call for an investigation; this entire debacle has all of the signs of a set up that was organized with knowledge of some elected Republicans, who have admitted to seeing the videos before they were “out”. It has the appearance of a conspiracy involving elected officials, to use deceptively edited videos in an election year to create a false flag issue.
At the time, Roll Call reported:
Rep. Tim Murphy, a member of the House Pro-Life Caucus and chairman of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee looking into the video, said at a Wednesday news conference he’d seen the clip weeks before. Asked afterward why he and others waited until this week to take action, Murphy struggled for an answer before abruptly ending the interview with CQ Roll Call, saying he should not be quoted and remarking, “This interview didn’t happen.”
Here’s an excerpt from CQ Roll Call’s hallway chat with Murphy:
CQ Roll Call: “So, what I wondered was, what’s happened in those few weeks? Why is it coming out now and not earlier?”
Murphy: “Um, I don’t know why. All I know is I saw it and he said he was going to post it eventually, so that’s all I know.”
Now Republicans are wasting more taxpayer dollars (please spare me the outdated and increasingly ridiculous claims that Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility and conservatism) chasing after a lie that is not even hinted at in the videos. Even deceptively edited videos could not create a totally false reality to give weight to the Republican lawmakers’ claims.
There is a story here. There is a big story here. “This interview didn’t happen.”
It’s interesting that the media hasn’t pursued how certain Republicans knew about these videos before they went public. Was there coordination? It sure looks like it. To what end? It looks like House Republicans were itching to investigate Planned Parenthood and they willingly worked with this shady group in order to generate something they could wave around at the press while screaming, “Evidence!”
This kind of media frenzy has worked before for Republicans but the press seemed less inclined to just run with it this time. They still haven’t swiveled their chair to stare at the people behind the videos and the elected officials who knew about them, but they aren’t running breathlessly with the false “Benghazi emails implicate White House!” headlines like they did when they were previously used as pr machines by crafty Republicans.
The press is never too interested in questioning Republicans when there is a victim around who can be blamed for being abused by Republican operatives.
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